Using a USB Drive as an Installation Source
Small form factor laptop computers, often called netbook computers or netbooks, are
becoming
increasingly popular. One drawback for the IT professional, however, is that
these computers are so small that they often do not have an attached optical media
drive. Although
it is possible to purchase DVD drives that use USB connections to attach
to netbook
computers
and perform an installation, more administrators are turning to
cheap multi-
gigabyte USB storage devices, sometimes called flash drives, as their preferred
installation
media of choice.
USB storage devices have several advantages over DVD-ROMs. With a USB storage
device,
you can modify the operating system image directly using tools such as Dism.exe.
You can add extra drivers to the image stored on a USB storage device, something that is
not possible
to do to the installation image stored on a DVD-ROM. You will learn how to do
this in Chapter
3, “Deploying System Images.” Another advantage of USB flash devices is that
they have faster read speeds than DVD-ROM drives, meaning that the time to transfer the
operating
system files to the target computer’s hard disk is reduced.
A USB storage device needs to be 4 GB or larger if you want to use it as a Windows 7
installation
source. This is because the x64 installation files are approximately 3.2 GB in size
and the x86 installation files are approximately 2.5 GB in size. You use one architecture’s
installation files only when preparing a deployment from a USB storage device. The USB
storage
device should use the FAT32 file system.
To prepare a USB storage device as an installation source for Windows 7, perform the
following
steps:
1. Connect the USB storage device to a computer running Windows 7 or Windows Vista.
Ensure that the storage device has no data stored on it that you want to keep (or that
you have moved such data to another storage device) because this procedure removes
all existing data.
2. Open an elevated command prompt and type diskpart.
3. At the DISKPART> prompt, type list disk. Identify which disk connected to the
computer
represents the USB storage device.
4. At the DISKPART> prompt, type select disk X where X is the number of the disk that
you have identified as the USB storage device.
5. At the DISKPART> prompt, type clean. When the disk is clean, type create partition
primary.
6. At the DISKPART> prompt, type format fs=fat32 quick. When the format is
completed
type active and then exit.
7. After you have completed these steps, copy all the files located on the Windows 7
installation DVD to the USB storage device.
8. Configure the BIOS computer on which you want to install Windows 7 to boot from
the USB storage device. Attach the USB storage device and then reboot the computer
to start installation.
There are several disadvantages to using USB storage devices as a Windows 7 installation
source. Although they are reusable, USB storage devices are more expensive than DVD-ROMs.
USB storage devices are also not suitable when you have to deploy Windows 7 to a large
number of computers over a short amount of time because you need to attach a USB device
to each computer to install Windows 7 on it. For example, if you wanted to deploy Windows 7
to 100 computers, you could configure 100 USB devices with the Windows 7 installation media
and answer files for unattended installation, or you could configure one Windows Deployment
Services (WDS) server and perform the installation over the network—a much more convenient
option.
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